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Tag: gift of childhood

Let Me Be A Child

Let me know when I make you proud.And help me to have pride in my own accomplishments.Let me earn your trust. Then trust me.I won’t let you down.Let me know you love me with a hug or a pat on the back.Or, when I need it, with a firm but gentle “no”Let me be. Let me change. Let me grow.Let me dream. Share my joy when my dreams come true.Share my tears when they don’t.Let me feel secure in my home. Help me realize that love is always there.That I can depend on you no matter what.Let me run. let me laugh. let me play.And most of all, let me be a child.

Sometimes it amazes me the demands that are placed on children these days. While as parents we can all say that we had it “harder” then our kids do now because we had to be creative and play with our imagination where as now there are video games and computers.

Let’s face it, the pressure that is put on our children today to grow up fast is really out of control.

We have them in multiple sports, we push them to join different clubs, their peers put pressure on them to look more grown up and dress more grown up and the media encourages this.

Take a look at the toys we want our little girls to play with, Bratz and Barbie… or have a look at the style of clothes that are available, do those toys look innocent to you?

Life passes us by quick enough as it is. Let your child be a child, regardless of how old they are. To help make sure your child isn’t robbed of their youth, here are several tips you can follow, one for each day of the week to think about.

Follow the principle that Regular Playtime is vital for everyone.

Get in touch with our own playfulness. Kids really do model what they see. Present a picture of adulthood that children will want to grow up to emulate.

Tell the kids it’ll be a laid-back summer. Ask them to create a fun bucket list of which activities they want to keep… and which they want to toss.

Parents may be shocked by what they say they want to quit doing. Sometimes kids do things because we want them to, and somehow we fail to notice their heart hasn’t been in it.

Arrange low-key times with friends and family. This may mean turning down some invitations and setting aside an evening as family night. Make sure kids have regular opportunities to just hang out with family and friends.

Encourage free-range (not pre-packaged), natural and spontaneous play— like a sandbox in the backyard, blocks and impromptu neighborhood soccer games, instead of an amusement park, elaborate toys and soccer camp.

Make sure children also have total down time for lying in the grass looking at the sky, or sitting on the sidewalk sharing a stick of gum with a friend.

Show trust in giving youngsters some freedom. Have confidence that when a child is off on his own and enjoying and directing himself in activities he chooses, that is his “job”. The chances are that whatever innocent activities he’s doing of his own free will are better than any “enriching” activity we might impose on him.

Children need to play. It’s their work. All mammals play; it’s their way of learning skills they’ll need when they’re full-grown, from finding food to getting along with others. It’s also the way small humans process their emotions.

Thinking back to our own best childhood memory, it won’t be a class or lesson, but the time we were allowed to just be.

“Children learn through playing, through active exploration that feeds their imagination, not by always having others organize the world for them.”

How can you let your kid just be a kid?

There’s a good chance that your child is, right now, making his own Harry Potter broomstick out of a stick he found in the backyard … and he might prefer it to the pricey vibrating plastic version you were thinking of buying him.

“Children learn through play — through puzzles, games, and questions and answers. They also learn on the playground — they learn about nature, weather and the seasons, motion, concepts of distance and speed, and cause and effect. They learn how to negotiate and talk with their peers.

If you live in an area where you can let your child run amok with his friends outdoors, let him; if you don’t, remember that just hanging with friends and neighbors indoors can be great too.

The result sometimes necessitates that you wear earplugs on a Saturday afternoon but that is preferable to the eerie silence that descends when little kids are locked for hours in the world of video games.

Providing an environment where family plays and have fun together is not an option, for us it is a must.

any activity that provides a quality family fun time will unite our children while making memories that they will never forget.

In my family we spent time together, we had fun together, we played together.

In the end, learning who we are primarily takes place not in the act of doing, but in the quiet spaces between things, when we can reflect upon what we have done and who we are. The more of these quiet spaces families provide for kids, the better.

We must remember they are children and it’s crucial we let them enjoy this part of their lives by letting them just be a kid.

Memories are not free, however they don’t cost money but time and that is what makes them so valuable.

We can build them around the most simple moments.

It is for us to make each moment count, no matter our circumstances, our past,